On Frowning and Photographs
by sharksteeth
Summary: Whenever she turned around, there was a frown lurking by, and all she could do was look and remember it.


Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or anything else belonging to JK Rowling. Everything but the plot belongs to her and her publishers alone. I am not earning any type of profit on this. No copyright infringement is intended.  
  
Notes: Ahh. I love stories you think of at three in the morning. Don't you? (Oh, and if anyone could tell me how to indent... I would love you forever.)  
  
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Luna Lovegood remembered things. Small things, that no one else seemed to notice or care about or talk about. Usually, as she realized, it was expressions. Facial expressions. The way people looked when they were frightened or angry or sad. She loved to see when people looked happy, but for some reason, whenever she turned around, there was a frown lurking by, and all she could do was look and remember it.  
  
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Harry Potter frowned when he thought about Sirius. When Luna looked into his eyes, she could see the Department of Mysteries and the blue glowing rooms and the faces of Death Eaters flash before her like twisted flames. He frowned each time he picked up his Firebolt, and so he always allowed himself a moment or two before Quidditch matches. He frowned when he saw Nearly Headless Nick floating in the hallways, and every morning when his snowy owl brought him the Daily Prophet.  
  
One morning, Luna drifted away from her Ravenclaw table and told Harry he ought to read the Quibbler more often. He looked up at her and managed a small smile, but turned back to his eggs and toast, and frowned.  
  
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Hermione Granger frowned for all the usual reasons, but Luna saw the unusual ones too. Hermione frowned when she found a particularly troubling Arithmancy equation (something that was extremely rare) and when Professor Snape refused to let her answer any more questions, and ignored her throughout the entire Potions class instead. She frowned when Professor Binns said her "How Goblins Survived in the 18th Century Without Killing Off Their Entire Race in Warfare" essay was too long and wordy.  
  
But she also seemed to frown whenever she noticed Luna watching her, and when Seamus and Lavender held hands under the table in the Great Hall, and especially in the few times that Ronald didn't argue back.  
  
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Ronald Weasley himself certainly frowned on a number of occasions. He frowned when Harry just didn't want to look at anybody anymore, when he got word that the Chudley Cannons were out of the runnings for the World Cup, and when Hermione refused to leave the library to go back to the common room with him for a bit.  
  
He also frowned whenever she spent hours at a time trying to cheer up Harry, and when she went searching far and wide for Neville Longbottom's toad, and when she took up shouting at Malfoy again in the halls, and—pretty much any time she was doing something that had to do with another boy.  
  
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Neville Longbottom. Whenever Luna looked at him, he was frowning. He frowned when he had to ask Hermione Granger which ingredient went into his Potions formula, when he realized Trevor was inside his trunk all along, and whenever he got a letter in the post from his Gran.  
  
He frowned whenever anybody mentioned St. Mungo's. He frowned a very different and more intensive frown when offered a piece of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, though Luna still had yet to figure out why.  
  
But one afternoon, when Luna smiled at him when they were both in the same Greenhouse, he blushed, and from then on didn't seem to frown quite as much, but maybe it was just Luna.  
  
---  
  
One person she found she watched a lot was Ginny Weasley. It struck her as odd that someone so brave and generally happy could frown so much, and especially because Ginny was the best friend she had, yet there were still things she didn't know about the girl.  
  
But Luna did know that Ginny frowned when she slept, and when Mrs Norris hissed behind her (and it sounded very much like a snake of some sort), and whenever either Harry Potter or Michael Corner passed her in the corridors. They were all very different frowns (particularly the two frowns between the two boys; Luna figured she was frowning for very different reasons) but Luna just knew they weren't for nothing.  
  
When Luna told Ginny she thought of her as a book she needed to get to the end of, and finally figure everything out, Ginny frowned, then looked at Luna and laughed.  
  
---  
  
But then there was her father.  
  
He seemed to frown the most, and this didn't surprise Luna.  
  
He frowned when Luna asked him to tie purple ribbons in her hair, and when it was all up to him to cook Christmas dinner, and when he went out into the garden and refused to let his wife's flowers die. He frowned when looking through old photo albums and old newspaper clippings, with pictures and headings that hit him hard in the face. But Luna knew he was strong. It had only been six years, but he was still strong.  
  
He was strong because the only time he ever cried was when it was dark, and Luna could hear him through the walls. He only cried when he woke up in the morning and saw the picture on the bedstand of the three of them, and he only cried when September rolled around and he had to hug his daughter tightly and kiss her goodbye. Only when Luna waved outside the window of that train, and only when she wrote him letters from school.  
  
Only when she sent him pictures of her blowing him kisses, but that was when he cried with happiness. That was when Luna was happy herself, and didn't mind if he frowned every once in awhile. 


End file.
